Stephanie Burns, writing in forbes.com, authored this provocative article on October 22. We think it’s provocative because in our experience, doing Solutions Forum groups, the ladies we’re had in the groups haven’t made much of being female, or even thought that being female conferred any advantages. We’ll have to talk it over with them. Our sense at the moment is that the four of them who come to mind probably thought being female was an initial disadvantage, because they had to prove themselves.
In the school, women have been a minority of our enrollees, but we’re not sure why.
Anyway, we’ll list the four advantages here, and if you want to look them over in more detail, Stephanie’s link is below. We’d certainly like some comment.
1. Collaboration and collabation (no that second word isn’t a typo).
2. Company culture
3. Intuition
4. Tenacity
Here’s the link to Stephanie’s article: http://forbes.com/sites/chicceo/2012/10/22/four-advantages-to-being-a-female-entrepreneur
Actually, after listening to a well known female entrepreneur interviewed on Fox Business, there’s another trait, that could be interepreted as either an advantage or disadvantage: non-confrontational. Women, including most entrepreneurs, don’t like confrontation, and run for the most part, much more collegial companies. Margaret Thatcher was a classic example of a confrontational woman, as are most of the entrepreneurs who’ve been Solutions Forum members, but they may be the exception. My sense is that Marissa Mayer, of Yahoo, might be nonconfrontational, from her interviews. Maybe Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook, and Meg Whitman of HP.
Clearly, we’re open for comments on this topic